Lifestyle

How many of you love daydreaming? I daydream every day, sometimes as long as 5-10 minutes. During this time, I am left alone with my pleasant thoughts and no school, work, or trouble seems to exist. In my daydreams, I am having a fantastic journey either by myself or with someone who is company I really enjoy. After a daydream, I feel relaxed and if I am at work, I come back to work with high efficiency. Daydreaming is one of my favorite relaxation techniques, but I would have never thought to make it into a hobby.

Life Made Simple presents you with a sweet story about one baby’s daydreams. In Finland, a mother named Adele gives us an imaginative look at the daydreams of her baby, Mila. When Mila takes a nap, she creates a scene around her baby and takes a quick snap picture. In the photos, Mila looks more like she is living a daydream than having a nap. As a mother of her baby, Adele “would like to see into the dreams of her little girl” and has her own daydream at the same time. Also she collects all the photos and integrates them in an album, which is called “Mila’s Daydream”.

Adele used to be a copywriter and advertising concept designer, but now has a lot more free time being a mother and housewife. She has found a way to make daydreams come to life. She uses clothes, towels, paper, toys, and other creative materials to create the scenes in the stories for “Mila’s daydream”. She says that creating these scenes are easy for her, “I only use a few minutes per picture, including creating the idea, implementation and editing, cause I don’t want to disturb her sleeping and most of my time is for my family.” Also, her tool for taking pictures is simple, she says, “My camera is a small and inexpensive Canon IXUS 750.”

A cute name explains the concept in each photo. Some examples are “Attack of the 50 foot woman’s baby”, “A Space Odyssey 2010”, “Oh What a Circus” and “Up” are based on existing art works. “Bookworm” is related to the book series. “She Loves Me, She Loves Me Lots” is a cute title Adele as a mom, gives one of the daydreams.

”Bookworm”

Creating daydreams as a hobby is not just for fun. There is always a story and a great meaning behind the pictures that Adele takes. I can’t help but think that Adele’s little girl is going to love seeing these pictures when she grows up. I know she will be proud of having such a brilliant mom!

“Imaginary Friend”

LMS encourages you to develop daydreaming as a simple hobby in your own ways. No matter what it is, as Adele’s words goes, “Never forget, everything is possible in the dreams. Keep daydreaming!”

Time to get inspired! Today Life Made Simple proudly features Chicago Fashion Designer Lara Miller. A Chicago native, Laura Miller attended the School of The Art Institute where she developed her niche for creating garments out of Eco-friendly materials. She conceptualized her garments to focus on versatility, and allowing women to “Wear it Your Way.” Lara’s focus is mainly on sweaters, but whatever the garment is, it can be wrapped, reversed, and flipped to reveal an entirely different look.

The Lara Miller line is manufactured in Chicago and her designs are strongly influenced by the city’s architectural and cultural landscape. An advocate to giving back to the community, Lara acknowledges the impact humans have on the environment. By making clothes with Eco-friendly materials, Lara hopes to preserve and respect the Earth any way she can.

“I see my company as a way to support my community – not only by using organic materials while adhering to a “green” lifestyle and workspace – but also by manufacturing locally and working to sustain the sewn products industry in Chicago.”

When she sketches, Lara uses recycled craft papers like O-tag paper, which is used for store tags on clothing or other products from companies like Henry Lee, who would normally throw away the surplus. During the design process, Lara draws the markers out herself onto scrap paper instead of sending her patterns off to be entered into computers and printed. Lara donates the left over scrap paper to Columbia College instructor Jamie Thorne to use in her paper making classes.

Lara Miller strives to use colors that are exclusively from low-impact reactive dyes in her designs, that use the least amount of petroleum by products and water possible. She has also been proactive in researching ways of using only natural dye sources, putting to practical use natural dying techniques that she learned in school.

Lara Miller incorporates organic cotton, hemp, vegan Ahimsa peace silk, organic wool, linen, lyocell, flax and soy fibers, hand-loomed bamboo and recycled organic cotton in her garments. Her favorite material to use is recycled cotton yarn that she gets from US-based company Jimtex. The yarn from this company is regenerated from post-industrial scraps from larger companies that make t-shirts and other cotton products. In re-using these scraps the need for growing more crops and using dyes is minimized and this significantly reduces the amount of waste that goes into our landfills.

“Being a ‘green’ company means much more to me than just using eco-friendly fibers. It means supporting the local economy and using the least amount of energy possible. It means using a local printer that only uses recycled paper and partially runs on wind power. It means giving back in every way that I can to my employees, my community, and the world.”

Lara Miller is an innovative pioneer who is helping sustain our planet through her Eco-friendly designs. Life Made Simple acknowledges Lara Miller as “one” person making a difference and applauds her integrity, hard work and dedication to her community, fashion, and the Earth.

Thanksgiving is a week away and many of us may already have Thanksgiving planned out from the dinner menu to the day’s festivities. Thanksgiving celebrations typically include families getting together enjoying a traditional feast of a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie- THE works! This special fourth Thursday in November is known as a holiday to express thankfulness to God, family and friends for all the blessings in our lives.

Thanksgiving is a celebration that is meant to be spent with loved ones! While you still have time to make the arrangements, Life Made Simple encourages you to plan to give to those who might not necessarily have the blessings that you have in your life. Whether you invite a friend over who doesn’t have family around or volunteer with family members at a local soup kitchen-giving back to others and your community will definitely put a smile on someones face this Thanksgiving. Now that’s something to be thankful for!

If you are interested at volunteering at a soup kitchen here are some helpful links to help you find one near you!

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How many times do we go inside a public washroom and in the speed of life and discomfort of its location just speed through our business without really looking around? I can imagine a lot of you are wondering where I might be going with this…I mean we are talking about a public restroom…right? Today I decided to take you there through the eye of my lens. You see, a public restroom can be seen as more than just a room with one specific purpose. Just as I’m sharing my thoughts with the readers of LMS, the walls of many public restrooms are used as a channel of communication for the free spirited poets and bluntly said; folks with a thought. Many times bathroom stalls have messages exchanged between individuals that don’t even know each other, but say some of the craziest things to their “stall” partners. There is a sort of secrecy about public restrooms – a cultural taboo, a place where individuals choose to share some of their deepest secrets. Today when I took my camera in my hands, I decided to look at the public restroom and I captured something beautiful. For the first time I saw this little room as something more….what do you see?

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Every time I see the Ferries Wheel, I recall the fantasy I imagined when I was a little girl. Every time I see Fireworks, I recall the wishes I had. For me, the Ferries Wheel and Fireworks are signs of happiness and brightness. Although I am already an adult, I still get so excited when I see them. They are the links from my childhood to my adulthood and my inner imagination of happiness. Looking at pictures of Ferris Wheels or Fireworks shinning in the dark sky, I can’t help but think about the simple life when I was a child. I miss the simple happiness, the simple beauty, the simple life so much!!
I took these pictures at Chicago’s Navy Pier where there is a beautiful Ferris Wheel and Fireworks Shows at night. I hope you look at my pictures with an open heart and are able to see through the eyes of a child and remember how you felt as one.

What is simpler, going to the grocery store to buy tomatoes or going to a farm and picking them yourself? From the many trips that I have made to the grocery store I acknowledge that it’s easy and fast to go to a store, grab some veggies put them in a bag and take them home to make a salad. Whatever your salad of choice may be and however great of a chef you are I want to challenge your taste buds and ask you to recall the flavor of the tomatoes in the Greek Salad or Caprese Salad you last ate. The tomatoes were they juicy and sweet or were they hard and bland? Do you know what a real tomato tastes like? Here at Life Made Simple we want to encourage you to think about things of simplicity and challenge society’s system that has created fast and efficient services. Convenience is nice but when does it get too convenient that we become enslaved to laziness and no longer work for what we consume but we just pay for it?

To show you what I mean, I decided to firsthand go out in the ‘field’ -literally and pick my own tomatoes. There is a farm very close to my house in Prairie View called Didier Farm. Didier Farm has been open since 1912. They specialize in growing a variety of vegetables and one thing that distinguishes Didier Farm from purchasing produce from a Farmers Market is that they give customers the option to go out in the field and pick [term they use: U-Pick] the veggies of their choice, for less money 🙂

In my experience of picking my own tomatoes I felt so liberated and free. After the busy day I’ve had-going to the city for my morning classes and taking the Metra train back to the suburbs going to a farm was the highlight of my day that humbled my spirit. To paint a picture for you imagine this; I was away from traffic noise, no other people around me-either talking or pushing shopping carts, just me outside amongst the fall breeze surrounded in a field of sweet tomato aromas. I felt like a kid again, picking tomatoes while playing a game with my feet called “don’t step on the tomatoes.”

That day I picked at least 3 pounds of tomatoes and my reward when I got home was to make a salad with few ingredients but so much sweet flavor. I felt good eating my tomato salad-after all I did pick the tomatoes myself!